Sally Rooney on not adapting the third novel, ‘Normal People’ discourse

Sally Rooney, who wrote the novels-turned-series “Normal People” and “Conversations With Friends,” is not jumping at the chance for future TV adaptations of her work.

In a recent interview with the New York Timesthe author said she has “decided not to accept any offer to acquire the rights” to her third book, “Beautiful World, Where Are You?”, due out in 2021. When asked why not, Rooney replied: “I felt like it was just time to take a break from that and let the book be its own thing for a while.

“Normal People,” starring career-making Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, became a critical and commercial hit when it was released in the US on Hulu in April 2020. Rooney’s debut novel, ‘Conversations With Friends’, was then also adapted by the same team, but reviews were more mixed. Rooney told the New York Times that she wasn’t as involved in the film adaptation of “Conversations With Friends” because she was busy writing “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” – but she doesn’t regret it.

“The experience of working on [‘Normal People’] had been amazing in so many ways: the team of people involved. But it also felt like a really big job,” she told the Times. “When the show aired, it felt like a lot in terms of the amount of discourse it generated and the amount of media attention. I felt like the world wasn’t where I belonged. I was like, ‘Okay, now I know my books are where I belong, and that’s all I want to do.’

Rooney’s fourth book, “Intermezzo,” focuses on two brothers grieving the loss of their father while exploring two very different romantic relationships.

On writing from the male perspective, Rooney said: ‘I am aware that people think my work is strongly autobiographical, when in fact it is not. It felt like they were just fictional characters, like all my other fictional characters, and I was intrigued by them. So the issue of gender felt very secondary, but there were moments when I thought: Is this of any use to me?”

“Intermezzo” will be on the bookshelves on Tuesday.